


by your name

by orphan_account



Series: Summer Pornathon '14 [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Animal Abuse, D/s, Dragonlord!Merlin, M/M, Shape-shifter, Summer Pornathon 2014, dragon!arthur, merlin/hp crossover, shape-shifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 15:27:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2274918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragonlords and shape shifters, both nothing more than fairy tales. When he is six, Merlin first discovers that's not true. They both exist. Within him, and Arthur. (+4k, NC-17, HP/Merlin crossover)</p>
            </blockquote>





	by your name

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge 3, trades & professions. Started out as something small and developed into a HP/Merlin crossover, Merlin a dragon tamer (or dragonologist). Hope I didn’t butcher HP here, haven’t written for/in it in ages.
> 
> This entry (like all others) is the initial, i.e. longer, version, not the 750-max-words of summerpornathon.

Scotland is made of rain, the first time he sets foot on its ground. The journey to the Edinburgh coffee shop is a fog of white faces and dark umbrellas, and its sounds are thick traffic and the wet noises of puddles stirred by feet or tires. When Merlin steps into the shop, he welcomes the warm, if stuffy, air. He orders a coffee and glances around the room. A freckled woman (in perfect Muggle disguise, Merlin notices, thankful) is waiting for him at the tables in the back. He pays for his coffee, makes his way over and tries to keep the dread down. _Let’s see how this goes_.  
   
He sets his coffee on the table. Before he has the chance to sit down, the woman shoots up out of her seat.  
   
“I’m Selena,” she says, sticking out her hand for him to shake.  
   
He blinks in the middle of pulling off his jacket and looks up. To her credit, if she is astounded, her face doesn’t show it, and she doesn’t even flinch when his eyes meet hers. It puts him a little more at ease, so that he just pulls one sleeve down and shakes her hand with his jacket hanging off from his other shoulder. “Hi, Selena. I’m Merlin.”  
   
She grins. “Merlin of the modern age, Scotland is delighted to welcome you!”  
   
They sit down, and Merlin struggles out of the other sleeve and puts his jacket over the chair beside him. “That was slightly more original than what I usually get,” he admits, grinning back.  
   
Selena leans forward. “Oh? What do you usually get?”  
   
“Questions about my mother’s age. People wanting to know where my glasses are. Or my beard.” Merlin rubs his shaven jaw, grimacing. “I hate beards.”  
   
“Me too,” Selena says, emphatically. They glance at each other at the same time and end up laughing. It breaks the ice, and they sit in silence for a while, Merlin warming his fingers around the cup of coffee and taking sips, Selena studying him. Merlin allows it. It doesn’t feel judging, just curious.  
   
“So,” she says at length. “You’re really young.”  
   
Ah. There it is. He’s been waiting for it. It makes him smile, crookedly. “Yeah. I guess.”  
   
“You guess?” She sounds disbelieving. “You can’t be more than, what, twenty-five? Twenty-six?”  
   
“Twenty-five,” he agrees. “Why, did you expect an old geezer?”  
   
“Yes. One with glasses and a beard,” she shoots back, sarcastically. “And a mother older than I can count.”  
   
“Well, sorry to disappoint you.” He shrugs. “There’s just me.”  
   
Selena smiles a half-smile, supporting her chin on her palm. “It doesn’t matter.” She adds, quieter, “It’s good you’re here.”  
   
Merlin fingers the handle of his cup and glances up. “That bad?”  
   
Selena’s smile vanishes, and her face falls into something pallid, worn. “Horrible,” she murmurs. “Dreadful.”  
   
++  
   
Selena insists on Apparating, but Merlin waves her off. She takes his oddity in stride, and so they hire a car. It takes them almost the entire day over water and fields and stones and through woods. The only impression Merlin retains later is a blur of colours; the anticipation will be the only clear, sharp memory he keeps, evoking a hot prickle along his spine every time he’ll think of it.  
   
Now, Merlin steps out of the car at last, pulls his hood further down to be able to see through the thick rain. Before him, nothing but miles and miles of Hebridean landscape stretch out: deserted, hard, and beautiful. In the distance, flat mountains of mossy green raise the earth. Their tips disappear in mist, in clouds.  
   
 _Yes_ , he thinks, fingers uncurling, tension seeping out. _Yes, this is a home of dragons._  
   
He blinks against the rain, and a drop of it lands on the tip of his nose. When it runs down to trace the curve of his bottom lip, it tastes of promise.  
   
++  
   
The MacFusty residence is at the foot of the mountains. Behind the mansion, the reservoir is  vast and reaches far distances, seemingly endless. The protection charms to keep the dragons in place are powerful and old, and to Merlin’s relief, they don’t feel malicious, lacking the intention to hurt upon contact.  
   
Selena introduces him to her father, the head of the reservoir. Under Mr MacFusty’s care, all Hebridean Blacks either thrive or live a poor life. Merlin has heard good things, but apparently that’s not mutual. Mr MacFusty takes one look at him and immediately sees how young he is. “Dragonologist Caledon,” he greets Merlin, and the burnt half of his face twists in a mocking grin. “Welcome. Oh, or should I say dragon _tamer_ , like they all call you?”  
   
Selena flushes and frowns. Merlin remains impassive. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before. Either way he’s here for the dragon. Nothing else matters.  
   
Mr MacFusty doesn’t seem to like how unaffected Merlin is. “Well, work your magic, then, you mismatched bastard,” he spits, “if you think you’re any better!”  
   
Merlin barely bats an eyelash. He smiles, instead, slowly, and, giving a bow, he says pleasantly, “Certainly, sir,” before he turns on his heel to leave the old man standing frozen in his spot.  
   
It’s not much later that Selena comes hurried into his room, mortified. “I’m so sorry,” she splutters. “My father—”  
   
“It’s okay, most people react that way when they see me.” Merlin shrugs but doesn’t say, _when they see my eyes_. It’s pretty self-evident.  
   
“Still, it’s...” Selena scowls. “That wasn’t okay.”  
   
“It doesn’t matter, Selena. I’m here for the dragon.” Merlin shrugs again, and gradually Selena seems to loosen up. At the end she sighs and sits down on his bed. She stares down at her hands in her lap, then glances at Merlin from the side. “My father’s right, though, isn’t he?” she asks, hesitantly.  
   
Merlin raises his eyebrows, looks at her expectantly.  
   
“They do call you dragon tamer,” she clarifies, and then, as if she can’t help herself, she blurts,  “It is a wonder, though—Britain’s most famous dragonologist, and so young at that!”  
   
Merlin quirks a smile. “I have my tricks,” he says, solemnly. “But tell me about that Black of yours now.”  
   
“He’s hardly a Black one,” Selena murmurs and goes on to tell Merlin about why exactly he is here.  
   
++  
   
All dragons are kept according to the regulations. They are allowed most of the free space (of which there is more than enough) and can fly and hunt to their heart’s content. Most of the dragonologists at MacFusty’s reservoir are a good lot, skilled and gentle-handed, even if they insist on wearing dragon hide gloves and equipment. It’s a wonder the dragons are as calm and satisfied as they are, but Merlin ascribes it to the cool climate, the open fields, and the high mountains. As long as they have their freedom, the dragons won’t mind silly little humans running around.  
   
Merlin finishes the tour feeling relatively at peace with the place. Most of the Hebridean Blacks have gleaming dark scales that look rough; their wings appear strong, their teeth white, their eyes reassuringly bright purple. They are healthy enough, so Merlin asks Selena to show him the difficult one of the pack.  
   
“He’s hardly pack,” Selena tells him, mouth twitching. They make their way to a far-off area, fenced in with protective spells that are even stronger than the other ones. “He keeps trying to break out, and we’d let him free if we knew he’d behave himself. But he doesn’t get along with any of the other dragons at all. He bares his fangs as soon as they come close and spends all day exhausting his poor lungs breathing fire against the protective barrier. He wants out. He wants out so badly he’s hurt a couple of the dragonologists around here when they tried to calm him down, and even my father can’t handle him. I have no idea what’s wrong, but he needs help, and we need help helping him,” Selena finishes sadly.  
   
The first time Merlin sees him he knows immediately what Selena means: there is nothing black about this Hebridean Black. There is red, though, a brilliant, ruby red gleaming over the rough scales of the dragon’s large body. His wings are devil’s wings, dipped in blood. His tail is thick, ridged like his elegant back, slender where it curves into an arrow. His claws uproot the earth as the dragonologists in charge of him shoot stunning spells at him, keeping him in place even as he moves restlessly against the thick chains trapping him. When they come closer, he bares his teeth, long and white, in a deadly threat.  
   
He keeps his eyes closed, his head to the ground. The chains around his powerful arms and legs keep the entire front of his body pressed to the ground in one restrictive, tight trap.  
   
Merlin stands at the edge of the field, watching. Over the dragon’s growls, the blood rushes in his ears. The dragon writhes in pain and ire as they try to tame him but fail: he is a wild beast of crimson, gigantic, like nothing Merlin has ever seen before.  
   
He is otherworldly, magical beyond magic.  
   
++  
   
Merlin is supposed to start on the next day. He can’t sleep the night at all and stays awake through the ceaseless patter of rain against the window. He thinks he can hear a dragon’s pained cries echoing in the relentless tears the sky pours onto the earth, both of it a lament. He doesn’t eat breakfast and is at the dragon’s place before anyone else, the bones in his fingers feeling weak through an unknown, strange tremor shuddering through them.  
   
The morning is cold, freezing, and damp with the night’s fresh rain. Merlin feels none of it. He feels removed, detached, all of his energy focused on this one creature of bright red colour in this melancholy, grey morning hour.  
   
The dragon senses his presence before Merlin takes the next breath. He begins growling in warning right away, curling the sides of his mouth in a sharp grimace. His wings vibrate with pent-up energy, and his claws shoot out, burying in the earth and scraping away at it, angered. His nostrils flare. His eyes are closed, and Merlin wonders about their colour. There is a yearning in his chest that feels sick, sick with the need to see the slits of the dragon’s eyes gleaming with the young daylight caught within.  
   
“It’s okay,” Merlin murmurs, nonsensically, doesn’t know if he’s saying it to himself or the dragon. His voice reaches the dragon and only makes him wilder, the vibrating of his wings reaching his back, making it tremble all over. There isn’t much the dragon can do other than shudder under his prison of chains, though, and Merlin feels unbearably sad that anyone should restrain this beauty so.  
   
“It’s only me,” Merlin says, quietly, as he cautiously walks forward to the dragon. Each step is a test, the dragon answering Merlin’s provoking offer by exuding steam from his nostrils, the sides of his mouth. The steam reaches Merlin, warming his body to an uncomfortable level, but still he walks forward. The earth seems to shake underneath his feet with how his heart is thumping wildly in the base of his throat, and the dragon is becoming more nervous with every step Merlin takes closer. Yet, there is no danger in this. The dragon is angry, and caged, and could burn him to ashes within a minute, but there is no danger in this.  
   
Merlin doesn’t know what it is, but he sinks to his wobbly knees in front of the dragon and touches his shaking fingers to the beast’s vibrating snout.  
   
The connection is instant, a hook in Merlin’s chest, burying itself. Brutal, fatal, and final.  
   
The dragon stills underneath Merlin’s hand, gradually but intensely. His entire frame, so wrecked and strung tight just mere moments before, goes loose and relaxed in the chains. Merlin watches the progression, breathless, overcome. The scales are sandpaper under the pads of his fingers, and there has never been a more beautiful sensation than this.  
   
“It’s only me,” Merlin whispers, awash in a wonder he can’t understand. This is different from all other times. The dragon answers him by softly growling his assent, and his tail twitches against the ground.  
   
As Merlin traces the curve of the dragon’s nostril with his knuckles, the dragon begins purring like a cat, rumbling from deep within his chest.  
   
He seems to say, _it’s only me too._  
   
Merlin never notices that, hours later, the other dragonologists stand around them in an awed, confused circle, uncomprehending. He just spends hours petting the dragon with the dragon’s eyes closed, feeling content and peaceful, and wanting nothing more than to break the chains trapping the dragon apart.  
   
++  
   
Once upon a time, Merlin’s mother told him that things such as dragon lords were a mere fantasy of the youngest wizard generations. It was a tale older than the Deathly Hallows’ one, telling of how the dragon lords of these tales were figures alike to the one God in the world of Muggles: mythical and omnipotent, they were said to be able to achieve the impossible. They were said to be able to tame dragons, the wild, beastly protectors of the skies. Dragon lords were said to be able to speak to dragons, like Salazar Slytherin was said to once have spoken to snakes.  
   
It was a fairy tale, is a fairy tale, people say still. Dragon lords don’t exist.  
   
When Merlin met his first dragon at the age of six, lost in the woods, alone and scared and crying, he met a beast with sharp claws and long fangs and slitted eyes whose wings seemed to span the entire sky. He thought he would die, then, and so he said, “Please,” without knowing what he was asking for.  
   
He met grace, when the beast bent its elegant neck to the ground at Merlin’s feet.  
   
He met grace, and when he touched the dragon’s skin, he met fate.  
   
Sometimes, Merlin learnt, nothing was truer than fairy tales.  
   
++  
   
(There is another fairy tale that has captivated Merlin since the first time he heard of it, that of shape-shifters. He first stumbled upon the concept in Tolkien’s books, reading of Beorn shape-shifter with an intense sense of awe he couldn’t understand. When he researched shape-shifters in his own world, he was met with confusion, derision, disbelief.  
   
Shape-shifters seemed equally as impossible as dragon lords.  
   
Merlin has always held this tale, above all, close to his heart.)  
   
++  
   
The same night in the pub all the dragonologists crowd around Merlin, wanting him to entertain them with comically absurd tales of how he managed to tame the dragon. The dragon spent the entire day calm and satisfied under Merlin’s touch, eating out of his hand and growling only in dissatisfaction when Merlin’s hands stopped moving over his skin. It is only now, ten hours later, that he has allowed Merlin to leave with cramped hands as he was finally soothed into sleep.  
   
Merlin doesn’t do much talking, feeling like every word he’d say would be betraying not only a part of himself, but the dragon too. He thinks of him still, even as the others go on and on about the wonder of it all. He doesn’t touch the drinks they buy him and keeps his fingers pressed together, keeps rubbing the pads of his thumbs against one another. If he closes his eyes, he can still feel the dragon’s skin. It makes him shudder in the warmth of the pub, and he squares his jaw against the heat bubbling in his stomach.  
   
He snaps back to himself just as a dragonologist says, “It’s such a beast, that one. Never let itself be tamed.”  
   
 _Him_ , Merlin thinks resentfully and looks down at his lap lest his face betray his thoughts. He’s enough of an outsider to them already. _Not it. Him._  
   
“Burnt MacFusty something bad, last year,” another one agrees.  
   
“Aye, and the old geezer wasn’t much impressed by that,” comments a third.  
   
“Not impressed at all,” Selena says quietly beside Merlin, face pale and shuttered. “What he did...”  
   
Merlin doesn’t miss the dark, knowing looks they exchange.  
   
++  
   
The second night, Merlin never sleeps. He stares blankly up at the ceiling of his room. He thinks of the others’ words in the pub, and sees MacFusty’s grin twisting the burnt side of his face into an ugly grimace. He thinks of the man’s malicious words upon first meeting him, and it makes him restless, makes his skin feel tight. Not for himself, but for the dragon.  
   
He doesn’t know why, but his blood is pounding hard in his temples the longer he stays in his bed. Eventually he gets up and out, and the night is cool, the wind storming around him forebodingly as he hurries forwards. He feels sick in his bones the closer he comes to the dragon’s den, driven forward by some unknown urge.  
   
He sees the spectacle from far away.  
   
Gigantic bursts of flame shoot into the sky, brightening the entire horizon in a bloody inferno. He runs towards the place and through the panicked crowd of helpless dragonologists on shaking, unsteady legs. The dragon has managed to free himself from the chains around his arms and is standing on his hind legs, rearing up to his full, impressive height, roaring out his ire into the night air. Merlin can spare no thought for anything else but how Mr MacFusty is frantically unleashing poisonous green spells onto the dragon’s front like a whip to a naked man’s back in a cruel, twisted attempt to calm him.  
   
The sight fills Merlin with a boundless rage. He shouts, “Expelliarmus!” before he knows it, and Mr MacFusty’s wand snaps out of his hand. Nothing is as satisfying as the crunch Merlin’s fist makes when it hits MacFusty square in the jaw. His entire body vibrating with fury, Merlin turns to the dragon. There are wide stretches of scarred pink flesh all over his front and the underside of his arms, breaking apart the scales in a crude way that speaks clearly of abuse. Eyes wet, heart aching, Merlin walks towards the dragon.  
   
The other dragonologists’ screams are loud and shrill amongst the dragon’s panicked firebreath, yet all Merlin hears is the dragon’s pained cries. The dragon’s attention zeroes in on Merlin immediately, and he gives a warning growl as his arms come with a heavy _thump_ onto the ground. The earth vibrates with it, but Merlin only waits until the dragon’s head follows so he can sink to his knees by the dragon’s head. He barely sees through the smoke coming from the dragon’s flaring nostrils, but it doesn’t matter. His hands find the dragon’s skin without sight.  
   
“My dear,” he murmurs, sorrowful. “They won’t torture you anymore. I promise.”  
   
At his touch, the dragon stills. Like he finds peace with Merlin’s hands on him, the same way Merlin’s heart finds peace when he can touch him.  
   
The night is lit dimly through the _Lumos_ spells spilling forth from the dragonologists’ wands behind them, and in the weak light, Merlin first sees the dragon’s eyes.  
   
One blue, and one gold.  
   
 _Like mine,_ Merlin thinks. His heart begins to race as he understands.  
   
++  
   
He Apparates them to a secluded spot in the very same woods he’d met his first dragon in. Everything is dark around them. Behind Merlin, the trees groan and snap apart as they bend with the dragon’s sudden weight on them, breaking underneath him, creating a horrible racket. Merlin, disoriented, quickly summons a blue orb of light. He squares his shoulders and steels himself, turning around. “ _I won’t hurt you_ ,” he rasps in sibilant Dragonspeak, vowels growled and consonants thick. In the night, his voice echoes back to him. It doesn’t sound like himself at all, and it’s never sounded more like him.  
   
The woods shake with a roar from the dragon’s throat. Merlin’s heart is wild in his chest as he watches the dragon’s frame convulse before him. It looks like a painful process, the dragon’s entire body vibrating before it slowly begins to shrink, scales smoothing, red skin bleeding out to white, until on the ground amidst the forest's ruins is nothing more than a naked, shaking man on all fours.  
  
Shape-shifter.  Merlin’s heart sings in discovery. He stands rooted to the spot, wants to reach out but can’t. “A-are you okay,” he begins.  
  
“My name,” the man interrupts him in gasps. “What is—my name—”  
   
He’s shaking badly as he stubbornly tries to rise. Merlin swallows. “Don’t—don’t move—”  
   
The man sways as he makes it to his feet. He staggers forward, head hung low, and hides his face in Merlin’s neck. “ _Dragonlord_ ,” he grits out, “give me my name.”  
   
Dragonlord. The word sinks into Merlin's bloodstream, setting a fire ablaze, fierce and terrible. Something in his gut reacts to the title, curling in dark delight. Both eyes glowing golden now, Merlin stares down the man’s back: even in the dimness of the blue light, his calves are an outline of strength, his thighs are trunk-thick, and the muscles in his shoulders bulge as he holds onto Merlin’s hips. The taut skin of his broad back is marked by intricate tribal tattoos in the red that the dragon’s scales were. Strong, sturdy, wild. A warrior’s built, a bear’s.  
   
Bear-man. Arthur. As majestic as his dragonself, the chief of dragons.  
   
“Pendragon,” Merlin utters. “Arthur Pendragon.”  
   
Arthur’s head snaps up at being called, being _known_. He pulls away enough to look at Merlin, his mismatched gold-blue gaze almost liquid underneath his blond fringe. “Yes,” he breathes, acquiescing, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgement. He remains motionless for a moment, two, then his body begins shaking again, shaking apart. He makes a noise like he’s hurt, his fingers tightening on Merlin’s hips.  
   
“On your knees,” Merlin orders harshly, instinct driving him.  
   
A second later, Arthur’s knees hit the ground. He stares up at Merlin, jaw slack. Waiting. Wanting.  
   
Merlin’s hands move by themselves, knowing what needs to be done before he himself does. He gets his prick out of his trousers and fists it, stroking slow and hard. He tightens his hand on the upstroke and forces out precome, smoothing it down his cock to get it wet.  “Tell me,” Merlin growls. “Tell me whom you belong to—”  
   
Arthur stares at his cock, pupils dilating the longer Merlin keeps stroking, the longer Merlin keeps it from him. He makes another noise that’s all need and hunger, leaning forward to close his teeth in a perfect O around Merlin’s hipbone, scraping them down in a dragging bite. He draws blood—Merlin grimaces—and laps at it, frenzied, crazed. His hands press bruises into Merlin’s skin.  
   
“Tame me,” he hisses. “If I’m yours, _tame me_ —”  
   
Merlin grabs Arthur by the hair, yanks his head back, bares his throat in an offer of vulnerability that Arthur willingly gives. “You are mine.” Merlin shakes Arthur’s head. “Say it.”  
   
“No, you have to—” Arthur strains against Merlin’s hold, strains forward into the direction of Merlin’s crotch. “Tame me, you have to—”  
   
So Merlin does: he forces Arthur’s jaw wide apart with two fingers, then holds his length, traces Arthur’s mouth with the head of his cock. He gets Arthur’s face messy with his precome, his chin, his cheeks, his jaw. He dips between Arthur’s full lips, and out, and in again. When he draws back, there’s an obscene string of saliva and precome connecting the head of his dick and Arthur’s glistening, red lower lip. At the sight, possessiveness swells in his chest, hot and satisfied.  
   
“You’re mine,” Merlin says lowly. “Mine.”  
   
He face-fucks Arthur into happy oblivion, fast and brutal. His balls draw tight to his body when he sees Arthur is fisting his own dick with both hands, jerking it clumsily, hips stuttering forward. Arthur comes onto the ground between Merlin’s legs with a harsh noise, and Merlin pulls out. He keeps Arthur’s head close with his fist in his hair, and Arthur looks up at him with a small, sated smile, murmuring, “Yours,” and makes Merlin come all over Arthur’s swollen lips and fluttering lashes.  
   
“Mine,” Merlin then whispers shakily into Arthur’s hair as he cradles him close to his body. His fingers stroke over the smooth, scarred flesh of Arthur’s chest and upper arms, and Arthur purrs for him. “And nobody will ever hurt you again,” he promises fiercely into Arthur’s ear, knowing nothing has ever been truer.


End file.
